Fall in PA

My mom and dad went to see St. Louis last week.  I'm not sure what that means: were they in a church with some random guy for a whole week?  If so, WHY?  Grown-ups are so weird.  At any rate, while they were seeing St. Louis or whatever, I got to go to Grandma and Grandpa's (Mama and Poppy's, as I call them)!  It was pretty awesome.  There were three dogs and a cat for me to play with!  I also got to meet my new friend, Esa.  She is five, which makes her a big girl.

Here is a picture of Esa with me in Poppy's tractor.  I liked sitting in the hay just fine... till the tractor started!  My goodness, that thing is so loud!  I was terrified.  But I did like the pumpkins.

 I got to see more pumpkins when Mama took me to the pumpkin farm!  I did like sitting with all the pumpkins.  And I looked so fall festive in my orange shirt!  My mom loves putting me in this outfit.  I just like any outfit I can wear with my Dora Dora Shoes (which is pretty much everything, right?). 

My mom says she's going to write a little recap of her visit to St. Louis.  Maybe that will shed some light on what those crazies actually did while I was having fun with the pumpkins!

September Recap

September 2011:

• Laura will ask "Happened?" with her arms all shrugged up and the inflection to suggest a question.
• Laura will also ask "Go?" in the same way, often when something disappears during a rousing game of peekaboo.
• Laura calls all crayons "Ca-yers."  She loves drawing, but often turns to eating the crayons after a little while. 
• Is really into the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and asks for "mowse" while pointing the remote at the TV.  She has also tried to where her "mowse" jammies to school.
• Laura has her first cousin!  When prompted she will say "cuz-seen."  Elizabeth was harder for her to say, and came out "bay-bay."  Ruth was much more fun to say, "Roooooo!"
• Sometimes Laura really sounds like she is talking in full sentances.  I'm pretty sure "Ah wah da" means I want that.
• Laura is very good at two-word phrases now.  We'll just start working on those three-word phrases!
• Laura told me to "Get it!" the other day.  Little Miss Bossy!
• Laura also mumbles something that sounds distinctly like "I want that."  Assertive!
• In the same vein, Laura is applying ownership: "My juice"
• Has been saying "applejuice" very nicely, with all three syllables very clear!  APP-EL-JOOSE
• Is getting great with names:  Uncle Andy is "Annie" and Grampy is "Bi-pee"
• Calls her favorite blankie (a 1-foot square thing) her baddy.  She likes to sleep with Baddy, Baa (a lamb) and Doggie.  Sometimes Boobee (Brobie from Ya Gabba Gabba) is included in this group.
• Loves to give "cooookeees" to "my Ries"
• Plays with her Snap-and-Style Dah-ee (dolly) every chance she gets; she especially loves putting the "haht" (hat) on Dah-ee's head.
• Loves watching Doodoo and Bits (Dora and Boots), Deedeedee (Diego), and Gabby (Yo Gabba Gabba).  Also enjoys watching Elmo.
• Routinely asks for a nobka (napkin) while eating dinner, so she can keep her hands wiped clean.  She gets too upset to keep eating if her hands get too covered!  She's getting really good at using her utensils though, which is a huge help.
• Asks for hep (help) when she's in need.
• Is currently insisting on sitting in her booster, pushed all the way up to the table so she can eat like Mom and Dad - no tray!
• Particularly likes eating with Mom-mee's fork, even if she already has her own.
• Loves to eat stah-bees (strawberries) while we grocery shop.
• Loves playing peekaboo and shouts "See oo!" as soon as one of us hides.
• Asks for eepmeal (oatmeal) for breakfast almost every morning.

C'mon, Mom!

My mom is no fair.  How was I supposed to know I was this sleepy?  I thought I wanted a snack!  So I look all silly, and Mom takes a video of it before she rescued me and put me in my crib:

But I really did enjoy that nap.  The part of the nap in the crib, at least.  I slept over an hour once Mom put the video camera down!  And when I woke up, I was all ready for some football!  I just got this new Steelers tutu.  I really like wearing it, and just wish Big Ben hadn't had so many silly turnovers.  We should have won by a landslide instead of just squeaking by!

In my new tutu next to Ries' tail

Football and naps aside, it was a fun weekend.  I went into the city for dinner with the 'rents and my Uncle Andy (ann-ee) and his friend Cassidy (cass-ee-dee).  I helped my mom eat some penne with sausage in Little Italy, and then I helped my dad play some shuffleboard while we watched some college football!  I had so much fun.  And that's two weekends in a row that I've gone into the city!  I'm such a social butterfly.

As a quick note, my mom says Facebook is being really annoying, and that she might take over Le Blog more often from here out to give updates about yours truly.  She says she's rather be able to say what she wants, how she wants.  So check in!  Love ya!

Dear Cousin

Dear Elizabeth Ruth,

I am your cousin, Laura Rose, and I am so excited you are finally here!  We are cousins, which is a very special thing to be.  Together, we will torment our grandparents at holidays, running all over the house and getting into everything we can.  We will spend just enough time apart to miss each other in a way we'll never have with any possible siblings.  We will have so much fun together one day, and then will wonder the next how the other is doing, way off at her own house with her own mom and dad.

Cousin, I am already counting the ways we will get in trouble together.  I'm older than you by almost 20 months, which means I will come up with the ideas and then blame them on you.  Since you are younger, you won't get in as much trouble for the ideas I feed to you.  It's going to be so much fun. 

I don't know when I will finally have a chance to meet you and maybe even give you a kiss on your soft little foot.  I do know that I can't wait to see you.  I will start practicing your beautiful name now, and maybe I'll be able to say it when I see you. 

Love Always,

Cousin Laura Rose

Concert Buff

My friend Audrey and I are so cool.  We went to a rockin' concert on Saturday!  I mean, our moms took us... but whatever.  The music was awesome.  I haven't listened to much Kindie Rock, but I really enjoyed the genre!  Great beats, perfect for some toddler dance moves.

Rock on, Audrey!

 My mom got some video of some of our sweet moves.  Audrey loves to dance as much as I do!

Audrey and I are BFF's.  You can tell, because we held hands the whole car ride home.  I also spent much of the day Sunday asking if I could see Audrey again.  Ah-dee?  Ra-ra.  Ah-dee?  That's my way of telling my mom to hurry up and schedule another playdate.  Thankfully, I got to see her at school on Monday.

 Sunday was pretty fun too, even if I didn't get to chill with Audrey.  Mom and Dad took me out to lunch to watch the Steelers game.  We won!  I ate french fries!  It was pretty cool!

Go Steelers, go!

Orioles!

Despite the enthusiasm I showed last year for baseball, my parents only just got me to my second game a full year later!  I finally convinced Mom and Dad that I needed to get to a game, and as luck would have it Dad's work was planning a trip to Camden Yards.

As you can see, I enjoyed last night's game against the Ray's just as much as last year's against the Yankee's!  In fact, the Orioles won 6 to 2 last night, so this year was even better!

My awesome Orioles hat even fits better than it did last year.  A man with a BIG camera on his shoulder saw me wearing it, and put me up on the Jumbo-tron!  It was so much fun to have all the fans cheering for me!  A little after I was on the Jumbo-tron, Dad got a text from a friend asking, "Are you at the Oriole's fan, or did I just see Laura's twin on the screen?"  Awesome!

Poker Night 2011

I spent the weekend up at Grandma and Grandpa's house!  I was really looking forward to going, because my cousins Emmy and Andrew were going to be there too.  They are technically my second cousins, but I love them so much.  Emmy is really sweet, and loves playing with me.

A game of ball with Emmy

The grown-ups were being silly, as always.  On a nice, beautiful, sunny day (our first in a long time!), they were hunched at tables with these small paper slips and stacks of plastic coins.  Sometimes one grown-up would have a lot of the plastic coins, but then he'd have to give them all to another person.  I guess it was a pretty good exercise in sharing those funny plastic coins.

Grown-ups are so silly

While the grown-ups played their odd game, I made use of the sunny weather and the pool!  My Uncle Vin's mom was visiting - I just love Mrs. Margaret!  She was my pool buddy for a while.

Chillaxin' in the pool

The grown-ups played their game for a long, long time.  Finally, after the sun had set and it was almost bedtime, they picked a winner.  Emmy's dad, Kevin, got to take all the plastic coins, all at once!  And then he traded those plastic coins for that green paper my mom is always after!

Winner, winner!

If I had known the game led to the green paper, I might have been more interested in learning how to play!

Labor Day

Hi Guys!  My mom sort of took over Le Blog for a while there, but here I am!  Back at the keyboard and ready to share some of my awesome adventures.  This past weekend was really exciting.  For some crazy reason, my mom and dad were home for THREE days instead of just two!  We had an action-packed weekend in honor of the third day.

On Saturday, I put on a party dress for my buddy Jackson's 2nd birthday!  I like getting dressed up.  I do not like having my hair done, but beauty is a sacrifice.

 Jackson's party was a lot of fun.  A bunch of my best friends were there, including Julia and Danny!  We played with trucks and balloons, ate cake, and whacked a fire truck with a stick for a while.  I'm still trying to figure out why the parents were actually encouraging such violent acts, but whatever.  They seemed to be amused, and you know how hard it is to keep those parents amused.  We were good sports and went along with it.  Besides, after the moms destroyed (the poor, innocent) fire truck, we got to scramble for packs of goldfish and raisins, so it was a win-win!

When we got home from the party, my Aunts Liz and Maria were at the house!  I got to visit with the aunties, which is always fun.  They always make such a fuss over me!  I love it!  We didn't get too many pictures (still without a camera, MOM), so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Mom and Dad thought we should spend our extra day off at the State Fair.  The weather was getting cloudy so at ten, Mom said, "Now or never!"  Halfway to the fair, it started to pour.  So we went to Best Buy to get a camera.  Mom and Dad got confused, did NOT buy a camera, but did receive a phone call from Danny's mom:  the rain had stopped (for a minute) and they were heading to the fair too!  So off we went to the fair.  It.was.AWESOME.

Mom tortured me on the carousel.  She couldn't figure out what was so scary about pretty ponies going up and down, up and down.  I cried.  The whole time.  But when I got off the ride, Danny was there!  With his mom, Becky!  Who is my favorite!  I love her so much, I often call her "Mama!"  We hung around the fair, ate some fried oreos, won a few toys, saw LOTS of cows, pigs and sheep, and then got to ride some tractors!  Other than the cows (moo!), the tractors were the highlight of my day.  I could have spent hours, just sitting on my tractor, rolling around the fair.

 I'm so glad the rain held off for my first fair experience!  Tuesday, I was back to school again.  It was Grampy's birthday, so I posed with Riesling for this photo.  I'm wearing what Mom calls "A True Fall Outfit," complete with pants!  I guess Mom is really excited for some cooler weather.  Hope you are enjoying a drier fall week than we are!

Summer of Classics

This summer I decided to make my own reading list, a so-called Summer of Classics Reading Challenge.  I made time to spend reading, rather than lazing on the couch watching mindless TV after work/dinner/housework.  I reachd out to friends and family for recommendations, and focused on the classics.  Here's how I did:

Finished:
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
This was so much fun - I can't wait to read it with Laura!
The Count of Monte Christo by Alexandre Dumas
I love action-adventure-romance novels!
The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
Another great one to share with Laura!
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Countess Orczy
More action-adventure-romance - this time with a little farce!
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
Action-adventure-romance, but with a much darker side.
Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
Not my favorite book.  Ever.  But glad to know that Lawrence isn't for me.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Absolutely beautiful.  Inspiring and beautiful.
Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
Fun and uplifting.  It's lovely to cheer for the main character!

This was such a fun way to keep up with reading over the summer.  I hope to do another reading challenge next summer, again focusing on the classics!  And while I might not make a big deal of it, the fall I'll be catching up on some children's literature that I missed the first time around.  I just need to find a copy of A Wrinkle in Time to get me started.

August Recap

August 2011:

• Lately, Laura has been pointing to things left and right, asking "What is this?"  She often repeats the words (with her own unique flair) after us. 
• She has said "suit," "glasses," "house," "upstairs," and "downstairs" a few times after prompting.
• Laura loves to say "bye!" to everything she sees and points to on her way to bed at night, sort of like "Goodnight Moon," a classic story that I know she'd love if she just sat still long enough to have it read to her.
• Favorite book continues to be "Horns to Toes and In Between," by Sandra Boynton, and has added "cheek" to her list of known and spoken body parts.
• Laura is adding words like crazy.  I can hardly keep up with writing them down.  Some of hte more memorable ones include:  rawberries (strawberries), flowers, hat (which she insists on wearing with great frequency), inside, outside, HOT & cold.
• Laura is really catching onto the idea of names.  Her friends, Ah-see (Audrey), Ja-see (Jackson, both of them), Danna (Danny), and Joo-ah (Julia) come up in frequent conversations.
• It's - and freeing - to have Laura talking so much more.  She can really make decisions and choices, which can be frustrating for her parents, but really shows her personality!

At Laura's 18 month check-up (at nearly 19 months), she was:
21 pounds, 7 ounces
31.5 inches tall
46 3/4 cm head